Interactive or live presentations via a telecommunications network (i.e., “telepresentations” such as teleconferences etc.) are becoming a viable alternative to face-to-face meetings due to the greater cost effectiveness of such telepresentations. However, there is still substantial expense in conducting such a telepresentation, particularly when the presentation members (i.e., presentation leaders and audience members) reside at a large number of geographically scattered sites. In particular, each of the sites may require specialized video conferencing systems with high data transmission lines for connecting the telepresentation members. Thus, due to the expense of provisioning and maintaining such networked conferencing systems, corporations typically have only a small number of such conferencing systems at strategically located telepresentation centers for conducting such telepresentations. However, there are numerous drawbacks to this approach, such as:
The dedicated telepresentation centers are expensive to maintain;
Presentation participants are still required to travel to these centers; and
Potential members of such a presentation who are not able to access such a center are excluded from the presentation.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a network presentation distribution system that alleviates these drawbacks, wherein such a system would allow individuals to access and/or participate in a presentation using standard telephony and Internet network connections found in most offices and many homes.